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Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - Bill of Rights

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Preservation and Proposition

Our mission is to document the pivotal Second Amendment events that occurred in Frontier Mercersburg, and its environs, and to heighten awareness of the importance of these events in the founding of our Nation.

We are dedicated to the preservation of the place where the Second Amendment was "born" and to the proposition that the Second Amendment (the "right to bear arms") is the keystone of our Liberty and the Republic.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Anderson Baker lives in a state with a litany of gun regulations. But no law stopped him from becoming a teenage drug dealer who could easily acquire, and use, his weapon of choice.

The national debate in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre has centered on the legislative approach to reducing gun violence: rein in assault rifles, downsize magazine clips, expand background checks and review mental health protocols. Baker says these types of measures would do little to stem violence that for decades has plagued this small city in the shadow of Philadelphia's skyline.

Dozens of frustrated city leaders, residents, law enforcement officials and other experts interviewed by USA TODAY echo the conclusion that the blood running in Camden's streets isn't just about gun laws.

"I wanted to shoot people because that's what I saw growing up," said Baker, 20, a Camden native who spent four years in jail after being involved in several shootings. "When I was younger, I would see my boys and cousins going into jail and when they got out, all the girls wanted them. So, I wanted to go to jail. I wanted to be like America's Most Wanted."
Baker, a convicted felon and former gang member, said this mentality is alive and well in the streets of Camden, which statistics confirm is one of the poorest and most dangerous cities in the USA.

Census records show that 42.5% of the city's 77,000 residents were living in poverty in 2011. Camden's murder rate -- 61 per 100,000 people -- was about 12 times the U.S. and New Jersey rates. Sixty-seven homicides were recorded in the city last year, breaking a grim record of 58 set in 1995.

It is against this backdrop that dozens of residents, city officials and other lawmakers in Camden shared their modest goal: prevent another record-breaking, crime-ridden year. Almost to a person, the focus was not on gun laws but on long-standing issues that fed Baker's struggles: a failing education system, a dearth of jobs and a street culture that rewards and even encourages criminal behavior.

"We need to not just try to prevent the next Newtown but look at what is haunting the people in the densely populated, poorest sections of our country," said Camden County Chief of Police Scott Thomson. "You have this paradox in that New Jersey has arguably the toughest gun laws in the nation yet has a city within it that has gun violence at Third World country rates."

Thomson has been an officer for two decades and served as Camden's police chief for five years before being sworn into his new position a month ago. He said Camden's problems go deeper than New Jersey's laws and points to the social problems of the city.

Camden's school district has the second-lowest graduation rate in New Jersey, declining enrollment and at least three schools among the state's worst performers. This spring, state officials moved to take over Camden's schools.

The city's law enforcement has also gone through substantial changes, adopting a county policing model that Thomson and Camden Mayor Dana Redd said will allow more officers to tackle crime and deter violence -- such as the new phenomenon of daylight shootings.

Camden suffers with more people passing their days without work or even real prospects for a job. While the nation's unemployment rate -- 7.5% -- has been on a steady, if slow, decline, 12.8% of Camden is still unemployed.

WHAT ISN'T WORKING

If people want to talk about guns, Thomson pointed out that desperate people on the streets can easily work around the many laws in place.

In a 2011 report, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which advocates stricter gun laws, considered New Jersey the state with the second strongest gun laws in America. Among other things, the state requires permits to purchase a handgun, a special ID card to purchase long guns, and background checks in issuing permits. It requires firearms dealers to be licensed and prohibits the possession and transfer of assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines.

"All these laws do is retard law-abiding people in New Jersey from having guns to protect themselves," said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, a non-profit group in Bellevue, Wash., that wants fewer gun regulations. He said authorities should focus on arresting criminals rather than toughening laws because such changes only create a demand for illegal weapons that criminals sell.

One problem, Thomson said, is that New Jersey borders Pennsylvania, a state with laxer gun laws. He pointed out another problem without borders: People determined to arm themselves and carry out violence often find a way. Which is why many in New Jersey shrug at the well-intended but often fruitless efforts by lawmakers in states such as Maryland and Connecticut who pass sweeping laws aimed at curbing gun violence. Sometimes, they argue, it's about changing a mindset rather than just the laws.

"For those of us in urban centers, it behooves us to weigh in and make sure issues of urban America are also being discussed in states where these gun laws are being proposed," Redd said.

At first glance, Camden looks like an abandoned urban center. Boarded homes, rusted street signs and pocked roads tell a story of a struggling city. For some, it's also the familiar story of inner-city America and a type of violence -- which often leaves young black and Latino men dead -- that gets little attention and few congressional hearings.

For Baker, whose mother had her first of four children at age 13, it's home.

Though he grew up without a father, Baker had plenty of men -- often imprisoned uncles, cousins and neighborhood drug dealers -- whom he admired. As a youngster, he was bullied and had behavior problems that led him to be bounced around schools and alternative programs.

Baker said his decisions to start selling drugs at 13, join the Bloods gang at 15 and carry out dozens of shootings were about manhood and making a name for himself the only way he knew how.

"It's about beef," Baker said. "It's about territory. It's about who can make the most money and have the biggest block."

This brash teenager didn't need gun shows or shops, nor was he slowed by background checks or waiting periods or reams of documentation. Baker secured his weapons of choice by borrowing guns from family and friends. In each instance, he was never encumbered by New Jersey's tough-as-nails laws.

THIS is not Connecticut

Last year's massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., changed the conversation America had been having about gun laws and safety in our streets. Suddenly, the laws Baker and his compatriots had been easily circumventing were getting a second look. Assault rifles and magazine-clip limits were back on the table. Universal background checks were pushed. Yet in Camden -- where most shooters use illegal handguns and a dwindling police force gave rise to open-air drug markets -- the solutions being proposed had no connection to the reality on the ground, officials say.

The city needs a holistic solution that gets to the heart of why people such as Baker turn to violence in the first place, they say. Other cities with higher profiles know this inner-city plague. Indeed, Chicago and Baltimore ache like Camden, with fairly strong gun laws but murder rates among the highest in the nation.
Thomson said 98% of crimes in Camden are not committed by assault weapons. The city's greatest problem is the proliferation of illegal firearms, such as criminals' weapon of choice in most shootings: semiautomatic 9mm handguns.

It's the kind of weapon Baker and other members of the Bloods, a gang that has chapters around the country, would carry.

Baker said he never attempted to get a permit and never had a background check when he got his guns.

"Gun laws to people in Camden are like saying you'll get a ticket if you jaywalk," Baker said. "It means nothing. Most politicians don't get that."

Most criminals are stealing guns, buying them from straw purchasers or tapping states with more lax gun laws such as Virginia and Pennsylvania, Thomson said.
In Pennsylvania, no permit is required to buy guns in stores or at gun shows, and there's no limit to the number of firearms a person can purchase at one time. Instead, the state requires a permit to carry weapons openly or concealed outside of a home.

"Pennsylvania is one of the states where there is just a glut of firearms," said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey. "You don't have to travel too far to get your hand on a gun here."

Ramsey, who wants stronger gun laws, acknowledged that his city's weapons often make their way into the hands of drug dealers and other criminals in Camden.

Baker knows that life, and Micah Khan spends his energy trying to redirect people headed down that dangerous path.

Khan heads Cease Murder Diplomats, a group that does conflict mediation on a grass-roots level and sends "community ambassadors" into neighborhoods and schools to talk about behavior modification.

"We have to talk about prevention before it gets to incarceration and guns and violence and murder," Khan said. "We have sat at a table with gang members who both had guns in their pockets, and they have been able to get up, shake hands and walk away."

Replicating such results and reducing Camden's crime and recidivism rates will take resources and support for people coming out of jail, he said.

Despite those challenges, Baker is one of Khan's success stories.

NOT ANOTHER STATISTIC

Baker's street life came to a sudden end Nov. 12, 2008, when he was arrested and charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and having an unlawful weapon after a run-in with a rival gang. Baker was found guilty of making a "terroristic threat" and served four years in a juvenile detention center.

While incarcerated, Baker became Muslim. Even with his new religion, Baker admitted, he was back on the streets selling drugs after his release in August 2012. Then Khan helped him enroll in Camden County College.

Baker is studying history civilization and works with the Cease Murder Diplomats.

"The younger kids looked up to us, and now they are doing what we used to do," he said. "When I walk down the street, I see the same brothers I was incarcerated with, and they just don't get it. I don't want to be another statistic in the grave."

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It All Started Here . . .

Frontier Mercersburg in 1765 was the "birthplace" of the right we now refer to as "the Second Amendment", or, "the right to bear arms". It was here that individuals for the first time, some would say divinely, embraced the link between "Life and Liberty". . . and struck the first blow for Freedom.

Historically the right to bear arms goes back even before our founding as a nation to the Glorious Revolution of 1689 when William III agreed to the English Bill of Rights. If one can look at revolution like a volcanic eruption in nature, you understand that often from the destruction come the seeds of new human values and beliefs. In this case the independence of the human spirit, the right to know God for oneself, and to trust your conscience was hard won in this revolution of the human soul.

One crucible begets the necessity for another and on the frontier in America the right to defend ones religious beliefs was becoming the right to participate in the decisions of government that impact my "self". Freedom of the soul was becoming freedom of the heart and mind. Smith's Rebellion began as an act they justified under the rubric of defending oneself because government had failed in its obligation to protect Life, Liberty and Property. This was the first assertion of this principle aimed directly at British Military Authority as well as the incompetent government of John Penn - anywhere in the colonies.

In the end, Smith's Rebellion was the first armed resistance against British Military Rule leading up to the American Revolution. It was the first American triumph over the best military force in the world. It was the first time upon defending oneself that Americans had proclaimed we can rule ourselves.

It would be ten years before the battles at Lexington and Concord.

...Let Them Take Arms

The "Right to Bear Arms" . . .or 2nd Amendment is one of the most discussed and contentious of all the amendments of the Bill of Rights. It is, in fact, the only amendment that contains not only the seeds but the actual instruments of the revolution itself. Further, it gives real affirmation to Thomas Jefferson's quote . . .

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

It is for this reason, if no other, that the Government and its functionaries vociferously assail and obfuscate the text of this simple assertion. More, it is for this reason, and in the face of the perennial onslaught that its defense and affirmation is essential to the survival of the republic.

Frontier Mercersburg & The Justice William Smith House

The frontier town of Mercersburg, PA. in the 1760's, although typical of many settlements along the Appalachian Mountains played a pivotal role in the creation of what was to become the "Bill of Rights".

Frontiersmen like James Smith and the Black Boys, many of whom were inhabitants of the Mercersburg environs, were early participants in a series of conflicts with the British government that established principles the eventually lead to the inclusion of the "right to bear arms" in the Bill of Rights.

Much of the focus, centers on the domicile (and likely place of business) of Justice William Smith.